Monthly Archives: February 2012

Photo of Jason Goh jumping at La Familia Sagrada taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sun 02.26.12 – The above photo of Jason (@smashpop) jumping at the La Familia Sagrada best describes the whole day. I walked down to the Fira de Barcelona to pick up my MWC badge and meet Clinton Jeff to get the audio gear I brought him to him. Rafe Blandford, Dan Carter and Nirave joined us, we toddled across the street to TapaTapa for lunch, where Trent, Jason, and Lester joined us.
After a delightful lunch, most went back over to the Fira for various press conferences but Jason, Lester, Trent and I did a 4+ km walk from the Fira to the La Familia Sagrada to stretch our legs and take lots of photos. It was good fun.

Sat 02.25.12 – Here I am in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012.
As I wrote here, I decided to go to Barcelona for MWC this year rather than Austin for SXSW Interactive. Now that I am here, even though MWC doesn’t start until Monday, I am so glad that I decided for MWC as Barcelona is fabulous and quite a bit cheaper than Austin.
I left LAX on Thursday the 23rd and arrived here at 7am yesterday morning. Even though I sort of slept on the plane, once I made it to my rented studio apartment I had a nap attack that lasted too long. In the afternoon, I wandered around my neighborhood and went grocery shopping.
In the evening, I met up with Dhruv Bhutani who is also in town covering MWC for Fone Arena, and we went to have drinks and tapas at Cerveseria Catalunya.
Barcelona is really lovely and I am glad that I am here.

Mon 02.20.12 – Tonight I met Erika in Gardena to try out an Izakaya style Japanese place called Azumi Restaurant. It was very good and the people watching was also good.
Today was an interesting day in the neighborhood and I had a data meltdown of which the most important bits were not recoverable, so reading this article in the New York Times on “Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived” was a bit of a balm.
I would like to hope that I can revive my lost files sometime before the next ice age… ;o)

This August, while speaking at the Mobile Javascript Summit, I came out in my presentation as Appnostic, stating that the mobile world is too young for us to get set in dogma on the subject of mobile web vs. mobile native apps but instead we need to be pioneering on all fronts of mobile development and creation. I don’t care if one is creating/developing a mobile native app, a hybrid app, or a web app / site, what really matters is that the human who owns the mobile has a good to great user experience, accomplishment of tasks, and an element of delight. Let’s create, design, and develop in a way that delights the mobile user and moves all of us forward.
Much of the web only for mobile rhetoric is not only limiting but a bit absurd when taken to the logical end. How many of the mobile web only folks would work only in their computer’s browser for every activity, professionally or personally, for months on end? Why ask that of the mobile owner that every task and activity should be accomplished only in the browser?
Two recent articles have pinpointed that now is the time to pioneer mobile design:Cennydd Bowles makes a clear and concise argument that we need to build and innovate for mobile be it web or native apps:

“No one has this problem about native desktop apps vs. web apps. The same people that decry native mobile apps use Coda, Photoshop, and OmniFocus. Native enthusiasts use FreeAgent, Google Docs, and Basecamp without a second thought. In the desktop world, we already know that whether a native or web app is better depends on what it’s for.”

One of the glories of a mobile is that it is particularly personal and the user should have the choice to use their mobile as they so choose, not how we choose for them. Maybe you prefer to do things in your mobile’s browser, but your next door neighbor loves loves loves native apps, dowloading them mostly but loves ’em anyways. Maybe you have only one ecosystem you will use and all of your devices use that one OS, but maybe your neighbor has a MacBook, an XBox, and an Android mobile and doesn’t care if they are different OSes, in fact they prefer it that way.

The mobile world is still very young and let’s not fight for a small slices of professional territory but instead let’s create great human centered user experiences and happy mobile owners rather than getting set in our ways so early.

Wed 02.15.12 – I am continuing to attempt to find a balance between getting work done before I leave for Mobile World Congress next week and blogging/adding photos from the last 6 weeks. Yes, I am that behind, but I won’t declare blogging bankruptcy.
The amusing part of this photo of taking my car to the car wash is that about an hour later clouds trotted in and then there was a deluge. At least my car was clean before the rain came down…
;o)